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Planet of the Dead (TV story)
Planet of the Dead 'is the 2009 Easter Special of Doctor Who. It was written by Russell T. Davies and Gareth Roberts, directed by James Strong and featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Michelle Ryan as Christina de Souza. Overview ''To be added Synopsis The Doctor is in present-day London and hops on a number 200 bus that suddenly travels through a wormhole stranding him and the other passengers in the middle of the desert on a planet in a galaxy clear across the universe. Aboard the bus one of the passengers is Lady Christina de Souza, a rather accomplished thief who was on the run after having successfully stolen a very valuable piece from a museum. The Doctor tries to unravel what has happened to them and most importantly, devise a means of returning, given that the bus is firmly stuck in the sand and heavily damaged. Back in London, Captain Erisa Magambo of UNIT has taken charge of the situation and faces the prospect of having to permanently close the wormhole before the travellers can return. Plot Under the cover of darkness of a London night, professional thief Lady Christina de Souza breaks into the International Gallery after the Cup of Athelstan is placed in containment and the security is stationed. Dropping in with zip wires, she steals the cup and escapes; while the police arrest her accomplice, she flees and brides a passing bus driver to let her on in order to evade D.I. McMillan. Just before the doors close, the Doctor steps onto the bus and sits next to Christina, wishing her a happy Easter with a chocolate egg. McMillan spots Christina on the bus and orders his patrol to follow it. On the bus, the Doctor takes a strange device out of his pocket for tracking something that starts to increase in intensity as they go through a tunnel, at the other end of which is McMillan's subordinate D.S. Dennison stationed with a police barricade. However, as the bus approaches the other end of the tunnel, the Doctor's device fumes out and he orders everybody to hold on as the entire vehicle drives into something that sends everybody flying. Meanwhile, McMillan calls Dennison and tells him that the bus just disappeared right in front of him. The passengers of the bus regain stability and step outside to find that they've wound up in the middle of a dessert. Unbeknownst to them, their arrival is observed by a pair of unseen creatures. One of the passengers refuses to step off the bus, hearing voices calling from outside. Outside, the wheels of the bus have buried themselves in the sand, rending it stuck. While the police seal off the tunnel on Earth, the other passengers demand the Doctor explain what he was doing on the bus. He throws some sand in the direction they arrived from and reveals the wormhole they travelled through to get there. The bus driver attempts to go back home through the wormhole but, unprotected by the bus, he comes through on the other side a skeleton. Stunned and rather horrified, McMillan calls in UNIT for assistance. Christina takes charge and has everybody get back inside the bus and introduce themselves; the other passengers give their names as Nathan, Barcley, Angela Whittaker and Lou and Carmen. To the Doctor's surprise, Carmen demonstrates signs of low-level telepathic ability that allows her to hear voices and she tells him that the voices tell her that death is coming. The other passengers start to panic but the Doctor quiets them and promises to get them all home to things that matter to them. On Earth, UNIT captain Erisa Magambo takes control of the police operation and orders them pulled back and all officers to open fire on any hostile activity. Nathan and Barclay remove the duckboards from the bus seats to make a flat surface the bus can back into. Angela tries to start the engine but, when the Doctor examines it he finds it full of sand. While Barclay gets to work on trying to fix it, the Doctor goes off to explore with Christina in tow. Still being watched by the unseen creatures, the Doctor and Christina look out from the top of a sand dune and see a storm approaching them from the horizon; concerned about what kind of storm is on it's way, they return to the others. The Doctor upgrades Barclay's phone and calls UNIT on Earth. Magambo takes his report and passes him on to the operation's scientific advisor, Malcolm Taylor, an enormous fanatic of the Doctor's achievements. The Doctor tells Malcolm to run a complete scan on the wormhole to discern if there's any connection between it and the storm. He and Christina return to the sand dune and photograph to storm so Malcolm can analyse it; while the Doctor works, Christina spots the creature on the horizon - a humanoid-fly in a boiler suit known as a Tritovore that directs them back to it's ship at gunpoint. The ship they are taken two is in two pieces in the sand, having crashed the same as the bus did. Inside, the Tritovore and his partner accuse the passangers of the bus of coming to attack them, but the Doctor explains taht they were brought here just as they were and are equally stranded. Restoring the ship's power, the Doctor sends out a probe to look at the storm before bringing up a holographic display of the galaxy and planet they are currently on, San Helios in the Scorpion Nebula. The Tritovores came to trade with the population for it's 'waste matter' when their ship was struck by something and fell from the sky. They show the Doctor a visual feed from a prospering city before he realises that the desert is all that's left of it and all living creatures on the planet. The Tritovores tell him that this occurred over the course of a year. Malcolm calls the Doctor and tells him the wormhole is increasing in size before he also gets a call from Nathan telling him that the bus has run out of fuel. The probe reaches the storm and is reveals to be a giant swarm of metallic stingray creatures before one of them eats it. The Doctor deduces that it was the swarm that generated the wormhole by their constant circling of the planet and are able to pass through it on account of their metallic exoskeleton; the wormhole increasing in size is to accommodate their approach. Christina asks why the Tritovores crashed and the show them the gravity well leading to the engine; they tell the Doctor the engine stalled ten miles above the ground but don't know why. The Doctor suspects he can use the ship's crystal nucleus to power the bus and enable their escape. While he and the Tritovores go to reactive the ship's access shafts, Christina sets up the zip line in her bag and goes down herself, despite the Doctor's attempts to stop her. On her way down, the Doctor deduces her lifestyle as a thief after finding the Cup of Athelstan in her bag. Making it to the bottom of the well, Christina grabs the crystal and it's plate bedding before noticing one of the creatures in the engine, the one that caused the crash. Her body heat wakes the creature up and the Doctor calls her back up as it makes it's way after her. Once she's back up, the Doctor suspects more of the creatures are awake in the infrastructure and tries to convince the Tritovores to come with them, but one of the creatures breaks it's way onto the bridge and eats the pair of them. The Doctor and Christina run back to the bus with the swarm chasing them; when they get there, the Doctor attaches the clamps from the bed plate to the wheels. He tries to start the bus but the systems aren't compatible so he asks Christina to surrender the Cup of Athelstan and a bonding agent. Despite his promise to be careful with it, he dents it up with a hammer to make it fit. On Earth, Malcolm works out how to close the wormhole and Magambo tells him to do so, but he refuses to close it until the Doctor comes back through. Magambo then holds him at gunpoint and orders his cooperation but he refuses to surrender. On San Helios, the Doctor manages to start the bus and suddenly it starts flying, the clamps he'd attached to the wheels being anti-gravity clamps. He flies the bus back through the wormhole to London as three of the creatures follow them back through. UNIT opens fire on the threat and Malcolm, with the Doctor's help, manages to seal the wormhole just second before the rest come through. Landing the bus outside the tunnel, UNIT processes the passengers and the Doctor thanks Magambo and an overjoyed Malcolm for their help. Christina breaks away from the soldiers and catches the Doctor outside the TARDIS, asking to come with him. To her shock, though, he refuses, not willing to take another person with him and lose them. McMillan catches Christina and arrests her just as Carmen and Lou take their leave; on their way out, Carmen gives the Doctor a warning, an ominous omen stating "He will knock four times". The Doctor looks over as Christina is placed into a police car, using his sonic screwdriver to unlock her cuffs as she's loaded in; she gets out the other side of the car and runs back to the bus, sealing McMillan out. She launches the bus and says goodbye to the Doctor from above before disappearing into the sky to the sound of the other passengers' cheers while the Doctor disappears into his TARDIS. Cast * The Doctor - David Tennant * Christina - Michelle Ryan * Malcolm - Lee Evans * Capt Magambo - Noma Dumezweni * DI McMillan - Adam James * Sgt Dennison - Glenn Doherty * Angela - Victoria Alcock * Nathan - David Ames * Carmen - Ellen Thomas * Lou - Reginald Tsiboe * Barclay - Daniel Kaluuya * Bus Driver - Keith Parry * Sgt Ian Jenner - James Layton * Sorvin - Paul Kasey * Praygat - Ruari Mears Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''Planet of the Dead'' page on '''Doctor Who Website